Thursday, August 26, 2010

A New Mansion for Shonda Rhimes

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: If the children will put on their celebrity real estate thinking caps they might recall what long damn slog it has been for indie-alterna musician and super Scientologist Beck Hansen and his wife Marissa Ribisi to sell their mansion in the Hancock Park neighborhood in Los Angeles, CA.

Back in April of 2007 Mister and Missus Beck bought a big house in the historic and fancy Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. They paid, according to records and reports, $6,750,000 for the 6 bedroom and 9 pooper property but quickly had a real estate change of heart–oh, those fickle famous folks and their wacky real estate ways–and flipped their real estate mistake back on the market in July of 2008 with an optimistic asking price of $9,000,000. By August of 2009, the asking price of Mister and Missus Beck's residential albatross in Hancock Park had plummeted to $6,595,000, otherwise known as $255,000 less than they had paid for the place just 2 and some years prior.

Finally and at long last Your Mama learned from the bizzy boys over at Celebrity Address Aerial that in early March of 2010 Mister and Missus Beck unloaded their unwanted residence for $5,600,000. A few quick flicks of Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that's just 62% of their original pie in the real estate sky asking price and a painful $1,150,000 less than they paid for the property not counting improvement costs–which include installing a full recording studio and rehearsal room–and the fat real estate fees that easily cost the couple more than $200,000.

This was not the first punishing financial loss Mister and Missus Beck took on their real estate portfolio in 2010. In February of 2007 they paid $2,050,000 for a modestly sized house in the Point Dume area in Malee-boo. They sold the house in late January of 2010 for $1,650,000, a $400,000 loss not counting improvements and real estate fees. If Your Mama tries to add all that up in our mind we come up with Mister and Missus Beck watching almost (or at least) two million clams wash away like flower petals on a raging river.

The buyer of Beck's white elephant was another Hollywood hotshot, 3-time Emmy nominated writer and producer ShondaRhimes, the ladee responsible for foisting hospital dramas Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice on the airwaves. All the children know by now that Your Mama does not care for a hospital drama. Not only do we not want to know that our male nurse Fentanyl patch on his thigh but the Dr. Cooter brings us home enough real life hospital drama to quench our thirst for all things medically related. Anyhoo and for what it's worth, MizRhimes also penned the screenplay for the Halle Berry vehicle Introducing Dorothy Dandridge as well as the embarrassing flop Crossroads starring Britney Spears in her feature film debut.

Now that MizRhimes has herself a new house in Hancock Park she needs to sell her previous home in Hancock Park which happens to be located just a few blocks norht on the very same street as her new manse. Property records show that MizRhimes picked up her first Hancock Park house in December of 2005 paying $3,885,000 for a 1926 Mediterranean mini-mansion that measures 4,940 square feet. The 5 bedroom and 5.5 pooper was listed on the open market in late July 2010 with an asking price of $3,695,000, a figure that represents an automatic loss of almost two hundred thousand clams not counting fees even if MizRhimes real estate people pull a real estate rabbit out of a hat and sell the house at its current full asking price.

It appears to Your Mama, based on the real estate photos, that MizRhimes has long moved on from her old house and into her new house and that her real estate people have had her former home staged like nobody's bizness. Or, at least we hope it's staged because there is so little life in the rooms that it would be heart breaking to think of MizRhimes making a home in a house where the books in the bookshelves are so preciously and self consciously displayed in the sun porch/family room that connects the formal living room to the terrace at the back of the house.

The former Rhimes residence opens to a soaring impress the guests foyer with and double-arched beamed ceiling, stained glass windows, dark stained hardwood floors, elaborate carved stone moldings that frame the entrance into the step down formal living room, and a sensuous staircase the curves gently as it rises to the private quarters on the second floor. We're just going to look past the unforgivable horse figurine standing there in the entrance way and call it a decorative moment of madness for StagerLadee in a Pink Toyota. The aforementioned formal living room has a beamed ceiling, carved stone fireplace surround, and a trio of French doors with transom windows that open into the sun room/family room where a couple of Bergere style arm chairs covered in zebra striped fabric flank a white upholstered love seat that we'd bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly was ordered from the Pottery Barn catalog.

The kitchen complex includes a lot of white cabinetry that reaches all the way to the ceiling, high grade stainless steel appliances, some of the most upsetting looking gray and beige tiles on the floor and some similar and equally as distressing tile on the counter tops, a huge butler's pantry, and a large breakfast room/den with a decorative mix of built in bench seating and black director's chairs with white canvas seats and backs. Other rooms include, according to listing information, a formal dining room with a curving wall of windows that look out on the back yard, a family room with built in cabinetry, a "jewel box" of a powder pooper for guests, office area, bonus/morning room–whatever that is–and a staff room and pooper on the ground floor.

The second floor includes 4 bedrooms and 3 full poopers including the master suite with 2 walk-in closets with dressing areas, sizable private pooper with pink walls, marble accents and off-white subway tiles, a separate soaking tub and glass enclosed shower. The master boo-dwar also has a covered veranda that Your Mama would quickly convert into a screened in sleeping porch for that at-home quasi-camping experience on warm summer nights.

In addition to the derigueur swimming pool and spa with old-school brick coping, the big backyard has an luscious outdoor showering station, built in barbecue center with sink and mini-fridge, a "romantic" vine covered pergola that shades a terrace with outdoor fireplace, thick and mature plantings that include fruit trees, and an elaborate and large children's playhouse done up like a quaint Victorian house. The detached two-car garage has been converted, according to listing information, into an office lined with brown stained shelves and cabinetry, pooper, and pool changing room. We adore a pool pooper and changing room, but would sorely miss a garage because it is, frankly, too damn hot to leave automobiles out baking in the scorching southern California sunshine day in and day out.

MizRhimes former residence has also been fitted and kitted with, according to listing information, several flat screen tee-vees–natch–a Crestron home automation system, surround sounds, amped up security systems and a tri-zoned heating and cooling system for summer and winter time comfort.

Your Mama can only hope that MizRhimes new residence works better for her and her family than it appears to have worked for the peripatetic Mister and Missus Beck who can't seem to find a place to plant themselves for more than a couple of years at a time.

Just from the aerial photos, I must say, despite my disfavor of the "Mediterranean" style, I prefer her old house (with its quirky foyer ceiling) much more than the new house - and it's closer to the Wilshire Country Club.

I hope she really needs the space, for frankly I can't see the advantage of an additional bedroom & some poopers justifying the move; after all, we've seen enough interior photos of both the unfortunate properties to know they're gonna need a lot of work.

No wonder show business folks are paid so much, they have to make up for their fickle - and expensive real estate decisions. I don't want to sound like a Bolshevik, but really what is wrong with this house? How much space do people need? Is it really worth losing $200k ++ because you want an even larger house?